No one likes getting beat, but the last two losses to the Angels doesn't have me distressed. They were both great games to watch. Oftentimes games don't turn out the way you'd hoped. But in Baseball, as we all know, it's the ability to persevere and climb above all the failure and disappointment that determines whether you move on towards the playoffs. Last night it was a comedy of errors and bad calls that did us in. Nevertheless, we move on to play another day. Per Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:
“Dan’s been around a long time, and [umpires] are busting their tails every night to get it right,” said Roberts. “When you see balls off the plate that can flip counts and can change innings and certainly at-bats, yeah, it gets frustrating at times when you’re the hitter. But those calls didn’t cost us the game.
“The results speak to those guys played better. They scored more than we did, pitched better, hit better, yeah, they played better.”Photo above via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2019. Go here to check out more pics from yesterdays game. Below are more links to check out:
- This Day in Dodgers History: In 1956 Brooklyn outfielder Carl Furillo becomes the first Dodger to hit a home run at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City -- a onetime home field for 15 games from 1956 to 1967. Unfortunately, the Dodgers lost this game to Cincinnati, 2-1. In 1978 the Lodi Dodgers, LA's Single-A minor league club, record two triple plays against the Fresno Giants. This is the first time since 1904 that a professional ballclub has recorded two triple plays in one game. In 2006 the Dodgers received starting pitcher Elmer Dessens from the Royals for Odalis Perez and a couple minor leaguers. In 2012 Hanley Ramirez plays his first game as a Dodger, after having beeen traded my the Marlins, and goes 2-for-4 at the plate with a walk, run and RBI (boxscore).
- Happy Birthday, Doc Reisling, Marv Rackley, Larry Sherry, Dave Patterson, Garey Ingram & Guillermo Mota!
- Wow! This is awesome. Via Alan Taylor at The Atlantic -- "Opening Day at Disneyland: Photos From 1955."
- This mornings Baseball America Prospect Report makes note of a Dodger, and it's not Gavin Lux. It's lefty Robinson Ortiz:
Ortiz fired 7 2/3 scoreless innings for low Class A Great Lakes. Ortiz needed 94 pitches to navigate his way through 7 2/3 innings, allowing a pair of hits and walks while striking out five batters. The Dodgers’ No. 30 prospect has completed at least six innings in three of his last five outings.
- That said, here is a story about Lux. Per Gerard Gilberto at Yahoo Sports -- "How Dodgers prospect Gavin Lux developed into the hottest hitter in baseball."
Gifford and Lux estimate that the 21-year-old put on more than 20 pounds of muscle since the workouts began, which also developed from the natural maturation of no longer being a teenager.“He did obviously put some more armor on his system,” Gifford said of Lux, who can apparently deadlift close to 600 pounds, get up to a 35-inch vertical and run in the 4.4-second range of the 40-yard dash. “He would do fairly well if he was at the NFL combine.”
- The Cardboard Connection shares a bunch of preview pics of Topps upcoming 2019 Dynasty Baseball card brand -- slated for release on November 6th. Check out the duel Sandy Koufax/Hank Aaron card on the right.
- Just in case this is something you want to check out. Jonathan Lloyd at NBC4 shares pics of, "Celebrities in the Stands: Dodgers Edition."
- Giovanni Balistreri at When Topps Had Balls shares a custom fantasy baseball card of Dodger hurler Al Downing.
- I found this way too fascinating. Via Rian Watt at FanGraphs -- "The Changing Landscape for Flat Ground Throwing."
There’s also a degree of inertia: flat grounds persist because they’re something players have always done. This starts in amateur leagues, where the imbalance between mounds available and players using them is even more stark than in the pros, and where there is even less knowledge of the potentially harmful effects. Gonzales’s response to my question, quoted above, was typical of player responses for this story. Most reacted to my questions about flat grounds as if I had asked them if they put their pants on one leg at a time in the morning, or why they eat breakfast before lunch; they just do, and don’t think much about it. “I’d love it if we had six or seven mounds so we could do all our work there,” said Emerson. “But we don’t. For a lot of our guys this is just a part of their daily routines.”But as conservative as baseball can be about its traditions and routines, the last two decades of constant self-evaluation and reinvention by coaches and front offices demonstrates that even long-held practices can change when they’re no longer deemed useful. “I don’t think that clubs have really thought hard enough about the risks to flat grounds,” said Bobby Evans, the former Giants’ general manager. “I think the assumption is that it’s just a warmup, when it might really be something that can put players at risk of injury. I want to know more.”
- Via David Schoenfield at ESPN -- "30 teams, 30 bad deals: Revisiting the worst deadline trade your team ever made." The chosen Dodger trade is not all too surprising. That said, that trade filled a need the Dodgers had at the time, and I suspect most folks realized we were going to be on the losing end of the trade over time. BTW, the 2016 trade for Josh Fields that sent slugger Yordan Álvarez to Houston will likely prove to be our worst trade ever.
- Here's a just announced trade with the Astros, via a tweet from Jake Kaplan:
Tyler White, recently DFA’d by the Astros, is headed to the Dodgers, sources tell The Athletic. Unclear if it’s via trade or a waiver claim.— Jake Kaplan (@jakemkaplan) July 25, 2019
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